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Rao a Guest on National Public Radio's Talk of the Nation

Professor Neomi Rao was a guest on National Public Radio's program Talk of the Nation with host Neal Conan for a discussion of Day 3 of the Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Judge Sonia Sotomayor. Appearing on the program with Rao were David Savage, who covers the Supreme Court for the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune, and Charles Ogletree, the Jesse Climenko professor of law at Harvard Law School and executive director of the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice.

Rao, who is scheduled to testify at the confirmation hearings for the minority, expressed her desire to address questions to the appropriate role of a judge and "to examine some common, competing different judicial philosophies that people often espouse and to try to situate Judge Sotomayor on this spectrum of judicial philosophies." She pointed out that it is difficult to evaluate a judge's philosophy simply by the outcome of a case and that to attempt to do so requires knowledge of what the underlying law is, how the judge approaches the current precedent, and how the judge applies the law to the specific facts of a case.

"There are many different approaches to being faithful to the law, and I think what we haven't seen in the hearing is her articulating just how she would approach statutes and the Constitution in the process of interpreting them," said Rao.

Special Coverage: Sotomayor, Day 3, National Public Radio Talk of the Nation, July 15, 2009.